A vast literature exploring environmental influences on human health and well-being has provided renewed interest in connecting planning for the built environment with health initiatives. In response, planners and urban designers have been tasked with translating this knowledge into spatial planning and design schemes.​. Authored by Eco-Health UCD team members Dr Mick Lennon, Dr Owen Douglas and Professor Mark Scott, Urban green space for health and well-being: developing an ‘affordances’ framework for planning and design responds to an identified need for a conceptually-informed framework for green space planning and design for health and well-being. The notion of an ‘affordances star’ is proposed as a means to maximise the functionality and inclusivity of green space for health and well-being. The pre-proof accepted manuscript can be found here.

Authored by Eco-Health UCD team members Dr Owen Douglas, Dr Mick Lennon and Professor Mark Scott, Green space benefits for health and well-being: A life-course approach for urban planning, design and management collates and reviews the evidence linking health, well-being and green space using a life-course approach. Based on the evidence, cohort-specific and cross-cutting design interventions are identified and a general integrated green space framework for health and well-being is proposed. This analytical lens facilitates distillation of a vast quantum of research and the formulation of specific planning and design guidance for the provision of more inclusive green spaces that respond to the varying needs of people across all life-course stages. The author version of the manuscript can be found here. 

Dr Owen Douglas of Eco-Health UCD and Dr Ronan Foley, PI of the newly commenced green-blue space project at Maynooth University, will convene a themed session titled 'Healthy Natures' at the 49th Conference of Irish Geographers (CIG).

Addressing the theme of ‘Disruptions and Transgressions’, CIG 2017 will take place from Thursday 4th of May to Saturday 6th of May 2017 in the Department of Geography at University College Cork (UCC).  With a view to exploring the shifting borders, boundaries and edges that represent phenomena and notions of disruption, researchers engaged in cross-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary endeavours are invited to participate.

Reflecting a growing interest in nature-based health and a wider sense of healthy natures that crosses the discipline drawing from medical/health, planning, urban, social, cultural and environmental geographies, the 'Healthy Natures' session is considering papers which speak to any of the following themes and settings;

• Green and Blue Spaces including coasts, rivers, lakes, parks, gardens, paths
• Planning of urban public open spaces including interstitial spaces
• Urban and Regional planning
• Gardens, Allotments and Private spaces
• Everyday health-enabling spaces and places
• Spaces of Risk
• Climate Change and health
• Critical settings for environmental justice
• Broad scale environmental risk
• Public and Population Health
​• Transgressive health behaviours in place.

For further information about themed sessions please click here.

To register for CIG 2017 please click here.

To submit an Abstract please click here.

Key dates:
Early bird registration closes: 20th March 2017
Final date for submission of papers: 20th March 2017
Online registration closes: 20th April 2017

For further information regarding the 'Healthy Natures' session please email Owen Douglas (owen.douglas@ucd.ie) or Ronan Foley ( ronan.foley@nuim.ie).

​UCD Eco-Health team member Dr Owen Douglas accepted the award for best poster at Well-Being 2016: The third international conference exploring the multi-dimensions of well-being (5th-6th September 2016, Birmingham City University) . The award was based on a vote by the conference delegates who were drawn from wide-ranging disciplines. Dr Douglas has written a blog post titled 'Well-being 2016: Green space reflections' based on the conference, which can be found here.

​Two researchers from the UCD Eco-Health team, Dr Mick Lennon and Prof Mark Scott, convened a workshop on greenspace justice and health and well-being at the recent Royal Geographical Society Conference in London (Sept. 2016).
 
The session was sponsored by the Geographies of Health and Wellbeing Research Group of the RGS/IBG, and attracted contributions from the UK, North America and New Zealand.
 
The key departure point for the workshop was to explore how greenspace issues could be framed from a justice perspective. While there is a longstanding recognition of the negative impacts on health of environmental ‘bads’ such as the geographies of pollution exposure, there is a growing focus on the potential positive influence on health of environmental ‘goods’, such as access to ‘nature’/biodiversity through more equitable distribution and access to high quality urban greenspace. Nevertheless, a number of knowledge gaps remain concerning the multidimensional relationships between greenspace and health and wellbeing. Firstly, the existence of greenspace in a locality does not always equate with a health-promoting environment. For example, within an urban context, perceptions of vandalism, safety concerns and poor design may undermine the use of greenspaces. Secondly, the potential of health-promoting environments may be undermined by the distribution of environmental goods across space and variable access by socio-economic status, gender, age and cultural background. For example, more affluent neighbourhoods tend to be well served by parks, tree lined streets and access to environmental amenities (such as coastlines, riverside locations etc.). This suggests the need to consider issues of social equity and health from an environmental justice standpoint.
 
The contributions to the workshop were notable for the very diverse research methods used to explore health and well-being, from large longitudinal social surveys, mobile interviews, interactive computer modeling and mapping to capture young and older people’s experiences of nature and more traditional qualitative interviews. A particular theme was the variation of experiences across the lifecourse, while the design, management and governance of greenspace and nature was also widely addressed.